One of our neighbour's has recently gone through a divorce. Her eldest son (around 16 years of age) has gone to live with his father near by, but her youngest son (10 years of age) has stayed with her.

She run's her own fashion and textiles business and is rather successful in her trade. Her youngest son and my brother (aged 12) were very friendly until about 1/2 years ago when they started to change in social and personal attitudes. They fell out over a few issues but remained friends. My brother doesn't really like him and is sort of forced into playing with our neighbour's son becuase he hasn't got many friends, even though my brother has.

Around 9 months ago, she called my mother to see if it was ok to have her son for one evening. My mum agreed and thought nothing of it. 9 months later and she "sends" her son up around 4/5 nights during the week. I'm not talking 5:00PM to 6:30PM. I'm talking 5:00PM to 9:45PM ish every night that he come's up. No offence, but her son starts school at 8:45 in the morning so by the time he goes home, has a bath, brushes his teeth etc he won't be in bed until around 10:30. At the same time as my brother is a stage above our neighbour's son he has homework nearly every night, probably around 1.5 hours to 2 hours every night. Granted, some nights he has less or none at all but he also can have up to around 3-4 hours of it. This means that my brother doesn't want to do his work as he is bothering with our neighbour's son. We can't exactly send him back home as nobody is there, so we're stuck. We either let my brother get on with his work (which he won't do as he has an excuse not to do it - his "friend" is here) or we let them get along with it and let my brother's education standards slip.

Both my parents work full time as teachers, the one a Headteacher and the other teaching in a Secondary school. They both get home around 4:30PM - 5:00PM every night. Sometimes, they can get home even later if there are meetings or events they have to attend. Luckily, my Grandmother who is aged 74 (don't tell her that) lives with us. She does a bit of cleaning, ironing etc and tends to cook the evening meal (3/4 nights out of 5) during the week. I get home around 3:30PM and my brother at 3:15PM. Our neighbour's son finishes at 3:35PM, she purposely picks her son up and then brings him back home by 4:00PM. The next thing that happens is that she send's him up and rings the house to see if he's ok for an "hour or so". Around 3-4 hours later she gets home. Still, at this point she doesn't call up to ask us to send her son down, but will wait until around 10:00PM at which point my brother has to have his shower etc and go to bed.

Is it just me or does she seem to be taking advantage? She has parents who are both able and could have her son, but yet she never seem's to ask them as it would be too much work for them. What about my Grandmother who has to keep an eye on them and feed them.

I know that I'm having a rant, but today she has really gone too far. All children in the UK are off school at the moment (as well as all teachers). So, At 9:00AM she call's to ask my mother if it's ok for Ben to come up for the day. Even though my parents are going to a wedding tonight and staying out, leaving my Grandmother to look after them we say yes. It's 6:41PM as I'm writing this, meaning her son has been up for around 9 hours. She recently ran to say that she'll back around 7:30PM. Does she seem to be using us or is it just me?

What about family or a little something called a babysitter? It's not as if she can't afford it, she drives a brand new BMW X5. My parents/grandmother are too afraid to say no as they feel that it may offend our neighbour? What the hell? She is taking advantage, or at least she is in my opinion!

We have bought curtains etc off her and she has never offered a discount or not even any payment for us looking after her son. He is fed, kept warm and looked after and we don't even get as much as a thank you!

Quoting Christa (Thread starter): 9 months later and she "sends" her son up around 4/5 nights during the week. I'm not talking 5:00PM to 6:30PM. I'm talking 5:00PM to 9:45PM ish every night that he come's up. No offence, but her son starts school at 8:45 in the morning so by the time he goes home, has a bath, brushes his teeth etc he won't be in bed until around 10:30.

Hehehehe!

This is the sort of thing that a bitter mother-in-law bitches about when she criticises her daughter-in-law. Heaven help your grandkids if you ever have any.

Leave your parents to worry about the 'responsibility' side of things, and you just get on with exacting some sort of childish revenge. It's the sort of thing that you will appreciate when you grow out of adolescence. I look back at my youth and I feel like I wasted it for being a pompous, self-important nobhead. Smear dog poo on this woman's car door handle, order her a few pizzas or something equally infantile. It must be so more satisfying and you'll have stories to tell at university, too.

I would have been too cowardly to do this sort of thing at your age, but by Jesus, I wish I had done.